How Leinster Found a Voice
And Dublin found a team worth supporting by Daire Whelan
I was born and bred in Dublin. Yet I’m a Munster fan. Even in the
Heineken Cup semi-final, I cheered for Munster to beat the team that
represents me and everyone else in the province. I just can’t identify
with them. Southside gits. Look at Munster. The Limerick tradition. The
dogs-of-war attitude. What’s not to like? Leinster, on the other hand,
long represented something more exclusive, less accessible.
“When I arrived in Ireland there was an element of the D4 about rugby in Dublin,” says rugby analyst Brent Pope. “In New Zealand the game is made up of everyone from gravediggers to stockbrokers. In contrast the Irish rugby players had the good jobs, the nice girlfriends, went to Leggs on the Saturday night. And the fans were the fair-weather ones. Leinster would have been seen as a soft touch – a team of bankers and insurance brokers.”
“Leinster is a franchise,” says Paul Howard, creator of Ross O’Carroll Kelly. “Whereas Munster is a team. If the team was renamed South Dublin, would there be demonstrations or protests? Probably not. You see, in the commuter belt in places like Kildare, Wicklow, Meath, the kids are wearing Dubs jerseys and using that as their badge of identity. Not Leinster. Leinster is more of a disparate thing and culturally it has always been the 31 counties versus Dublin, and that attitude still exists. How could you persuade a Meath man that he is a brother-in-arms with a Southside Dub?”
While the points that Howard and Pope make are valid, it is also true that the fortunes of Leinster rugby appear to be changing. Not simply on the pitch. For the team’s success has lately been mirrored in a social phenomenon that is just as interesting – and largely unheralded. Whisper it: Leinster are hip. They may, in fact, be the hippest team in Europe.
How on earth did that happen?
Rugby’s traditional base was the fee-paying schools of south Dublin. “When I first arrived,” says Pope, “rugby was about what school you came from. I couldn’t believe how huge schools rugby was. There would be crowds of 20,000-plus at these games and then the following week I’d be at a Leinster match and there would only be 2,000.”
Before the game went pro in 1995 – a move the IRFU initially opposed – the natural correlation was between the schools and the clubs. The provinces were just an add-on. While inter-provincial matches were always a draw, according to Leinster and Irish international Denis Hickie they were usually a hindrance, getting in the way of the club season. In 1998, however, a decision was made to structure the game professionally via the existing provincial network and through centralised player contracts. The modern game was born.
At the time there was some dissent among the clubs as it was obvious that the writing was on the wall; in a country the size of Ireland it was not going to be feasible to have a dozen or so pro teams. Instead, it was the provinces who became the new pro clubs in effect. And so, without much of a history and pedigree, Leinster struggled to forge an identity; the team soon became associated, rightly or wrongly, with the traditional rugby bases in Dublin – the clubs and schools – and hence the D4 tag. Munster, in contrast, had always had the tradition and history: who will forget the 1978 win over the All Blacks? No one, it seems.
In the face of such competition, on and off the pitch, perhaps it was unsurprising that Leinster rugby initially failed to take off in the city and province, or that it was regarded for much of its early years as a sport for the privileged elite. Denis Hickie recalls talking to Declan Kidney, Munster’s coach, at the last Leinster-Munster match in October, when 27,000 people came to Lansdowne Road. “We were laughing at how far things have come. He remembered a Leinster-Munster game a few years back played in Garryowen’s ground, and you were lucky if there were 500 at the match.”
There are many such stories. Just three years ago, only 1,000 people turned up to see Leinster play Bath in their Heineken cup pool game. A year later it had hit 2,000, and one year on, 6,000 turned out to see them take on Bath again. Last season over 12,000 supporters travelled to see the team beat Toulouse in the Heineken Cup. This season the number of season tickets sold doubled to 3,700, while the team’s newsletter is now sent out to over 40,000 fans every week.
“The merchandising and commercial side of it has gone through the roof in the last few years,” reveals Mick Dawson, Chief Executive of Leinster. “A few years ago you were more likely to see a Bath or Leicester jersey in Dublin than a Leinster one, but we’re now selling 20,000 jerseys each year.”
What happened? How did this dramatic transformation occur so quickly? “Whatever way you look,” says former Irish international Donal Lenihan, “the modern game is a far better model than existed in the amateur days.” It’s hard to argue with that. The arrival of professional rugby, the sustained boom, the success of the Heineken Cup, enthusiastic sponsors in the Bank of Scotland, a new vision and determination within the IRFU… all are cited as reasons for the rebirth of Leinster rugby. Without results, however, all these are incidental. The team is maturing and playing a brand of rugby this season that combines flair and running with a structured winning basis. And significantly, the captain, Brian O’Driscoll – one of the world’s best rugby players – has just committed himself until 2011. The omens have never looked better.
But what about the D4 tag? Will it continue to dog the team? “We’ve worked very hard to try and get away from it,” says Dawson. “We play there and are based there and there’s nothing we can do about that. But very few people from the team are from south Dublin. The D4 thing is just a myth – and besides, we couldn’t rely on getting the crowds from there as not many people live there for a start!”
Brent Pope is more sceptical, yet also, in his way, encouraging: “Leinster are trying to shake off the shackles of the BMWs and the girlfriends in the fur coats. It will take a while to change as people in Dublin and Leinster have their choice of other games to support. But kids are now saying to their parents, ‘I want to go see Leinster and Brian O’Driscoll.’ The success of the Irish team also feeds into that but it also means it’s now easier to get tickets to see O’Driscoll playing for Leinster than it is for Ireland.”
Getting rid of the elitism from the game has been an act of necessity, according to Munster legend Mick Galwey. “Since the game has gone pro the elitism has gone... The game needs the people and fans coming in to see the matches. In the recent Celtic League match between Leinster and Munster it was mainly Leinster fans and they were just ordinary fans. I live in Kilkenny and you see a few die-hard Leinster fans there now as well. People are wearing the jersey whereas before it would have been the Munster colours they were wearing.”
Leinster coach Michael Cheika – from Australia, via the Lebanon, and widely cited as a talisman – argues that the game needs to be embraced by all types. Isn’t it true, however, that rugby remains a bourgeois passion? “I didn’t know much about the culture before I came,” he admits. “For me it was just an opportunity to coach some talented players. But Australian and Irish rugby cultures are very similar. There were the same class stereotypes in Australia as well but the game is so widely broadcast now it has lost that, and it is all just about the game’s appeal. Class and status only exists if you let it exist.”
What, then, of the fair-weather fans like me, who live in Leinster but usually support Munster? Such talk is enough to raise the heckles of Denis Hickie. Schooled at St Marys in Rathmines, and coming from a famous rugby family, Hickie has represented both his province and his country with distinction. “Look,” he says, “I’ve also met people saying ‘I’m actually a Munster supporter because my Dad is from Cork’ – any tenuous link will do. And you know very well they’re the guys who will start supporting us when we start winning trophies.”
“You get guys from Carlow saying ‘I’m really a Munster man’ – what’s that all about? You’re either from a place or you’re not from a place. I just don’t understand how, if you’re from somewhere, you can give your allegiance to another team. In my mind it’s like being Irish and saying you’re supporting England, or being French and supporting Germany. If you’re from somewhere that’s where you’re from and it’s a bit convenient to tag along with the winning team. I always think it’s more of a reflection of the type of person they are. They are people who want to associate with something because they think it’s a better reflection on them.”
In light of the facts that illustrate the growth of Leinster in recent times, a question: has the attachment to the team become a tangible thing across the city and province? What, indeed, does it mean to be a Leinster fan? To find out, a friend suggested that I take the trip to Donnybrook on a cold Friday night in the middle of November. My attitude, he said, was old school. I was being left behind in the rush to join the Leinster bandwagon as it moved out of the elite private schools and into the masses.
Never mind your Toulouses or your Munsters. Forget about the Heineken Cups and European adventures. The real rugby support would be here, I was told, in Donnybrook.
It’s a bitterly cold November night, and I am here to see Leinster take on Newport-Gwent Dragons in the Celtic League. The first sharp frosts have arrived since the start of the month and we know winter is coming and coming soon. None of Leinster’s famous faces will be on show (O’Driscoll, Horgan and D’Arcy are all with the Irish international set-up). So who on earth will turn up?
Walking in to Donnybrook from the city, the beaming floodlights announce themselves to arriving fans. Approaching the stadium, the floodlights themselves are an important part of the vista. Thousands of people in blue Leinster jerseys and scarves – including many attractive young women – mill about on the street. Some are still looking for tickets, others for their mates, yet more for a spot to have a pint. It’s not quite international soccer night, but at least there’s a buzz about the place. We head into Kiely’s pub. You are now entering free Leinster. And the accents and the colours don’t let you forget. It’s not exactly Hill 16, but it’s just as tribal. I let my guard down, have a few pints and soon I’m enjoying myself. These are my people around me after all, supporting a local team in my hometown. I haven’t had to get on a plane and fly to London to drink in a British pub with British people to enjoy a good game or support a good team. I’m here down the road from work and one side of the Liffey from home, and it’s much better than having to catch a flight home late tonight. I am introduced to Robbie O’Connor, chairman of the Leinster Rugby Supporters Club. Raised in Drumcondra, he immediately breaks rule one: the need for a southside address. “I wasn’t brought up in your stereotypical rugby background,” he concedes in a flat Dublin accent. “In fact I never played rugby growing up. It was GAA in the local Christian Brothers school.”
Why, then, did he turn to rugby? “I can’t explain it really. I started going to Smithwicks Cup games at Old Belvedere on Friday nights with a few friends, and it just grew from there I suppose... I found the support and the social scene very friendly and welcoming.”
O’Connor has no time for the clichés of old. “The perception of rugby within Dublin and to a greater extent throughout the country is of being purely D4, but it is far from it. On the terrace at Donnybrook there are post office workers, computer operators and travel agents. People I know come from Wexford, Louth, Offaly and Kildare.” Does O’Connor believe the hype? Are Leinster as fashionable as I am beginning to believe? “Never mind the Munster fans,” he quips in response. “We’ll surpass them. Fair enough, in organisational terms they’re better but we’re catching up on them. Leinster supporters are going away to Celtic League matches in greater numbers for example. It’s a bold statement all right – saying we’ll surpass Munster’s support – but it can be done. And at least our song, Molly Malone, comes from the same province, unlike their Fields of Athenry from Connacht!”
I grew up on tales of the golden era of Irish soccer, when local games were played in front of 20,000 people in the 1950s; one can’t but wonder what it would be like to grow up in such a sporting atmosphere again. We have soccer internationals to create nights like those, but they are few and far between. Tonight I get some sense of the possible return of big-time sport to this city.
“Time has given people a chance to identify with Leinster,” says Mick Dawson. “In winter we are the only pro game in town, and it’s a chance for people to go to games on a Friday night and see some of the best players in the world in action.”
Yet still the detractors scoff. Rugby, they say, is a game for hooligans that is played by gentlemen – and Munster are the team that most gentlemen support. There is, to be fair, some truth in that one. (My thesis was wrong: Leinster are not the hippest team in Ireland. Today, however, they could well be the second hippest team in Europe.) Just don’t go repeating such shibboleths to Denis Hickie. “In our team,” he says, “there’s only three or four guys from Dublin. There’s as many guys from outside Dublin in the squad and team. And if people from Leinster support Munster, it’s actually good as it has separated those who really want to support us from the fickle ones, which means the base is being built on a solid core of support. If it’s based on fly-by supporters, that’s not a good foundation – as they say, rats will always jump first from a sinking ship.”
Hickie speaks with conviction – and with good reason. Today there are as many Blackrock boys in Fair City as there are on the Ireland team. Is rugby finally breaking free of its up-turned collars and ditching the deck shoes for the runners? It certainly looks that way. Donnybrook is going to be upgraded and the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy and Shane Horgan are becoming local heroes for the generation now emerging.
Who, then, deserves the credit? Is it merely down to the players? It’s all the product of ten years hard slog, says the Provincial Development Manager, Phillip Lawlor, a former Leinster and Irish international. “Previously the IRFU concentrated on its rugby heartlands such as the rugby schools and clubs, but they’ve now broadened their horizons. We’re getting communities involved with their local clubs and going into schools which used to be GAA heartlands. Places like Navan are booming in rugby terms.”
Navan is not alone. Tallaght, not traditionally a rugby stronghold, now boasts an under 20 Harlequins team, an adult team playing J4 league and under 12, 14, 16 and 18 teams. Some 40 girls’ schools participate in Lawlor’s rugby programme; over 100 schools play tag rugby; and over 3,000 mini-rugby players tog-out each weekend in clubs up and down the province, along with 2,500 youth players.
The work on the ground is complemented by the success of the team on the pitch. There’s nothing like success and standing to break down the barriers. We’re helped, as Lawlor says, by the structures – but most importantly, by the players. This is a golden age for rugby in Ireland: we should surely embrace it.
It will be fascinating to watch the game evolve over the next ten years. Tallaght and west Dublin are still alien territory for vast swathes of the city’s population; likewise, D4, Ranelagh and its environs are foreign lands to many of us who come from north of the Liffey. Rugby can contribute to the breaking down of boundaries, and here, now, a successful Leinster side – led by a man who was schooled in Blackrock but, significantly, born in Clontarf – may well be the catalyst.
Say it loud, say it proud. I’m a Leinster man myself.
Published in the December 2006 edition of The Dubliner magazine
hi my name is james and i play for tallaght rfc under 16 and i can see what you are talking about being from tallaght all my mates have no concern for rugby saying it is for posh folk.i have also noticed many people supporting munster over leinster but i like both teams if not leinster that little bit more it is a dream of mine to play for leinster or munsteralso i found it very difficult to find a rugby club in tallaght thats all i have to say good bye
Posted by: james ritchie | August 06, 2007 at 22:59
"You see, in the commuter belt in places like Kildare, Wicklow, Meath, the kids are wearing Dubs jerseys and using that as their badge of identity. Not Leinster. Leinster is more of a disparate thing and culturally it has always been the 31 counties versus Dublin, and that attitude still exists"
Considering these commuter belt counties are all within the province of Leinster, how could the Dublin youth descendant's wearing of a Leinster jersey possibly be a distinguishing badge of identity??
Posted by: Owy O'D | April 16, 2008 at 16:29